


Nike Flying

by LayALioness



Series: Stories of Mine (myths, re-imagined) [9]
Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5452100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LayALioness/pseuds/LayALioness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“That’s Medusa,” Aphrodite says, nodding over at the pair. “Apparently they met online."</p><p>“She looks--nice,” Nike says.</p><p>“It’s just a fling.” The smile she gives her is soft and nice, like always, but it’s a little pitying, too. “You’ll always come first to her.”</p><p>“It’s not like that,” Nike says, automatic, because it isn’t. It’s never been. She’s sure some part of her is in love with Athena, and always will be, but in the same way she’s in love with sprinting barefoot through wet grass, or staring at the stars from her rooftop, or caramel-apple-spiced scones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nike Flying

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like now is as good a time as any to say I'm at http://tierannasaurusrex.tumblr.com/ and I take requests for mythology so if you have one you'd like me to write, let me know.

Whenever anyone asks Nike where she met Athena, she says  _in the womb_. It always confuses them, because they’re very clearly not related, but Nike never really bothers explaining, because she’s still not sure how. 

Every memory she has is tinted by Athena’s presence, constantly there in the back of her mind. When they were younger, they used to hold hands wherever they went, sending a clear message:  _we are here, together._ Athena feels like an extra limb, an added joint in her arm, just another trait about her--Nike, age nineteen, brown hair, brown eyes, best friends with Athena. Just another part of her existence.

They’re at a party--one of Dionysus’s, the end-of-year rager he throws every December. It’s open invitation, which means the private beach is filled. It’s winter in California, caught between chilly and warm, with all the girls wearing oversized sweatshirts over colorful striped bikinis, so they can show off their very long very tanned legs. The boys are wearing t-shirts and jeans, because they don’t try so hard. Boys never do.

Nike is sitting with Artemis and Apollo, knees drawn to her chin because now that she’s gone still, her toes are going numb in the sand. Athena’s off getting them more of the vodka Dionysus poured into a trash can, foregoing the punch bowl completely. At least he lined it with a plastic bag, first.

Nike met Artemis when Athena took her as her plus-one to her uncle’s wedding. They’d been milling about the reception, held out in some sunflower field in the middle of nowhere, with the sun glaring down on them full-force. Artemis had been around the side of the smallest barn, off to the side cast in shadow, smoking a cigarette like some black and white film actress, leaving electric purple lipstick on the filter’s end.

“Those things’ll kill you,” Athena said, wrinkling her nose at the smell. Artemis blew a perfect smoke ring in her face.

“Life has a hundred percent mortality rate,” she said coolly, and Athena rolled her eyes, but she sat beside her, anyway. Nike leaned back on her other side, legs still itching. She didn’t like standing still.

That had been some months ago, and now Artemis has quit tobacco, and taken up those flavored e-cigarettes, instead. She’s smoking one now, and each puff of her breath smells like blueberry, the dye in her hair glowing green in the fire light.

Apollo’s texting one of the boys from his art school, that he’s been fucking off and on for the last semester. There’s paint, splotches of green and red and purple, all up and down his arms, where the sleeves of his sweater are rolled up, and a couple on the line of his jaw. Neither of the twins is speaking, because they have better things to do--for Apollo, that means sexting. For Artemis, that probably means writing some Byron-style poetry in her head, or daydreaming about exsanguination, or something. Nike never really knows, with Artemis.

But Athena’s been gone for a while, now, and Nike’s legs are starting to itch again because she’s been sitting for too long, so she shakes out the pins and needles, and heads off to collect her friend. She’s probably gotten into some sort of social justice argument with one of Dionysus’s old frat brothers, or one of the junkie girls he keeps around at all times, for compliments and hand jobs. Athena has very little patience for things like addiction, along with ignorance, arm wrestling, car racing, American blues, family reunions, the color pink, reality television, slow customer service, cat calling, and mental illness. Athena is not a very patient person, at all.

Nike’s used to having to jump in, when Athena picks a fight with some biker gang, or calls some guy at the bar a dozen different archaic words that mean  _phallus_. Athena always starts the fights and Nike always finishes them, and she knows it’s probably just one of Athena’s many strategies--she knows she’s being used, that Athena would never start them if she didn’t think Nike would help, but. She uses Athena, for homework and human interaction in general. If it were up to Nike, she’d only ever hang out with plants.

But when she does manage to find Athena, between all the different crowds, she’s not yelling or tipping her drink on anyone’s head or calling someone a penis. Instead, she’s cuddled up next to a girl Nike’s never seen before, pressed all against her side, smiling and leaning in to brush her lips against her shoulder.

The girl is pretty, with a long slender neck and long slender arms and long slender legs hidden under a thin skirt that falls down to her ankles. There’s a scarf wrapped all around her head in an intricate twist, and she’s wearing a pair of sunglasses with rose-tinted lenses. Her lips are painted some color between black and red, and the corners of her mouth are turned up, inviting.

Athena looks like some different version of herself, that Nike’s never known. This Athena looks like she might wear a floral sundress and go wine-tasting, or volunteer at a homeless shelter, or carry a Jane Austen novel around in a pastel-colored bag. Nike can’t help staring, because--she’d thought she knew all the different versions of Athena. Athena knows every piece of her.

“That’s Medusa,” Aphrodite says, nodding over at the pair. She’s sipping from a bottle of raspberry Mike’s Hard Lemonade, with her boyfriend’s MIT hoody draped over her orange-and-cream swimsuit. Her legs are just as long and tanned as everyone else’s, and her hair falls in the same soft yellow waves. But she still manages to stand out, somehow. Nike’s never known her secret.

“Apparently they met online,” she adds, even though Nike didn’t ask. She probably didn’t need to; she’s never had a good poker face. 

“She looks--nice,” Nike says, lamely, and Aphrodite hums.

“It’s just a fling.” The smile she gives her is soft and nice, like always, but it’s a little pitying, too. “You’ll always come first to her.”

“It’s not like that,” Nike says, automatic, because it isn’t. It’s never been. She’s sure some part of her is in love with Athena, and always will be, but in the same way she’s in love with sprinting barefoot through wet grass, or staring at the stars from her rooftop, or caramel-apple-spiced scones. 

Aphrodite hums again, because parties always make her charitable. Plus, Hephaestus just built her a custom DeVille; Athena showed Nike the pictures.

“She was a spoiled brat growing up, and she’s a spoiled brat in adulthood,” Athena grumbled as Nike thumbed through her camera scroll. Athena and Aphrodite were the kind of sisters that liked to talk endless shit about and to each other, but never let anyone else.

Athena seems to have finally noticed them, and whispers something in Medusa’s ear before giving her a wet, drawn-out kiss, and then stumbling over to Nike. She’s grinning a little sloppy, with dark lipstick smudged along her mouth, and she drapes herself on Nike with a happy sigh.

Athena becomes very affectionate when she drinks, which Nike’s pretty sure means she wants to be affectionate all the time, but has trouble with it. She hugs stiffly, and whenever Nike gives a long-winded rant about her shitty day, Athena just reaches over to pat her head a little, never looking up from her books.

She presses her nose to Nike’s neck, all warm, drunk camaraderie, and whispers “That’s  _Medusa_.” She rolls the name off her tongue, like it’s a different language. 

“She looks nice,” Nike offers, and Aphrodite snorts into her drink. Nike shoots her a glare, but Athena doesn’t seem to notice.

“She is nice,” she agrees. “I want her to meet you.”

“Okay,” Nike says, and lets Athena drag her over, getting one last sympathetic glance from Aphrodite before losing her in the crowd.

The worst part is, Medusa  _is_  nice. She’s quiet, and lets Athena carry most of the conversation, but she smiles and offers a wave when Nike comes over, and she asks about her job as a personal trainer at the 24 hour gym, and seems genuinely interested. She works at a domestic abuse hotline, helping battered women and kids, she has weekly coffee dates with her two best friends, she has no family but she does have a pet cat, a rescue from the shelter.

Honestly, the only thing Nike dislikes about Medusa is the fact that she can’t dislike her at all.

Over the next few days, Nike’s expecting to become the unwitting third wheel--Athena will want to spend her time with Medusa, and she’ll drag Nike along like she always does, because they’ve never really known how to be apart. At least, Nike hasn’t.

Except, she doesn’t end up as the awkward extra seat at the movies or in restaurants. Athena never asks her to come, and Nike isn’t sure if that’s even worse. She’s not really used to feeling lonely, and she isn’t sure what to do with it. Mostly, she just goes for an extra-long run, barefoot and thoughtless. She doesn’t run like Athena does, with a specific playlist and mileage in mind and the latest pair of arch-support Reebok's. Nike runs like it’s instinct, like she’s a wild thing in the woods, like it’s a part of her, like she’s about to take flight.

When her hamstrings are too sore for her to move anymore, Nike spends her time on the internet, looking up theories about Area 51, and Nome, Alaska. She has a notebook filled with facts and stories, written in her nearly-illegible handwriting that Athena complains about everyday.

Christmas comes and goes, and New Year’s. Nike gets significantly drunker at both than she would have if she were with Athena--they have a ritual, where they stay up all night drinking the expensive champagne that she steals from her step-mom, and they watch  _It’s A Wonderful Life_  in French.

But instead, she spends Christmas with her estranged family, and then she goes to the New Year’s party at Aphrodite’s, which is basically just a classier version of the party on the beach. Instead of putting vodka in a trash can, she puts it in a hollowed-out disco ball. Nike drinks until she knows that anymore, and she’ll end up puking in one of Aphrodite’s fancy vases. At midnight, she makes out with some guy who smells like spicy aftershave and gives her beard burn. She hates every second of it.

Nike takes up jumproping again, spending hours up in her attic apartment, feet pounding on the concrete with each shallow hop, until her heart feels ready to burst through her breastplate. She does sets of pull ups on the rod above her door, and she looks up dance tutorials on YouTube, swing and ballroom and jazz--although she likes hip hop, best. At work, during her downtime, she starts training on the balance beam. When the balance beam is taken, she tries out aerial yoga, across the room.

When she’s had enough of cardio sports, she turns to Artemis.

“You do archery, right?” She’s flopped down on Artemis’s mattress, staring up at the ceiling. There are bruises around her eyes, she knows, and Artemis frowns at them.

“When was the last time you slept?” She’s working on some sort of mathematics, for one of her college courses. There’s a book open on her lap, and Nike can see a diagram of the Northern Hemisphere’s constellations on one page. Her hair is back to black this week, at least on the top; when she turns her head, Nike catches a glimpse of blue-green locks underneath.

“I don’t sleep,” Nike shrugs. “Insomniac. I can go for days before passing out.”

Artemis frowns more, but she doesn’t argue. Instead she says “Why do you want to learn archery?”

“I want to know how to do it.”

“Why?”

Nike hesitates. It’s hard for her to explain her deep seated need to  _know_  things. Or, how to do things, specifically. She’s not like Athena, with encyclopedias memorized, a million useless trivia facts in her head,  _The Art of War_  in a place of honor on her bed stand. Instead, Nike looks up articles on wiki-how, and then puts them to use. While most people are sleeping, she’s learning to cross-stitch or start fires with a tampon or how to twist out of a choke hold.

“I don’t like not knowing how to do things,” she settles on, and Artemis seems to accept it.

“Alright, but then I’m teaching you how to shoot a gun.”

Nike grins for the first time all week. “Deal.”

Athena finally calls fifteen days after the party. 

“Sorry I’ve been AWOL,” she says almost instantly. “Medusa wanted me to meet her friends, and we all went camping in the mountain. Nye, it was beautiful.”

Nike frowns--she’s known Athena for nineteen years now, and Athena does not apologize, unless there’s something she wants.

She takes it anyway. Athena’s her best friend, and Nike’s never really known how to be mad at her.

“It’s fine. Track, today?” She’d somehow talked Athena into joining cross country with her during high school, and while Athena doesn’t live and breathe running the way Nike does, she still enjoys it, and they try to meet up at the gym’s track at least twice a week.

“Actually, I can’t, sorry. I’m having lunch with Medusa and dad.”

“You’re introducing her to Zeus?” Athena usually tries to keep her family separate from the rest of her life, but from her father, especially. 

“He basically threatened to just show up unannounced if I didn’t,” she says, and Nike can tell she’s rolling her eyes. 

“Sounds like him,” Nike says, and she hums. The conversation grows stilted. “Artemis has been teaching me to shoot,” she adds. Artemis, as it turns out, is a good teacher, to the point but patient, and a master at her trade. The gun range they go to is nice and strangely calming, and so is the weight of the gun in her hands. Nike’s only been at it for a week now, but she’s already better than some of the veterans that go there, and she’s more than a little proud. 

“What? Why?”

Nike frowns. “I asked her to. What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing,” Athena says, even though something clearly is. Her voice sounds strange, and for once, Nike can’t tell what she’s thinking. “I just didn’t know you were really friends with her, that’s all.”

“Well I had to find something to do,” Nike snaps, sounding bitter even to herself. “While you ditched me for two weeks. I don’t just hang around, waiting for you constantly, you know.”

“I know,” Athena says, mild, but it sounds like a lie. She did think Nike spent her time waiting for her, and Nike hates that she’s right. “I’m sorry,” she says again, just as false as the last time. “I’m sorry that I’ve found someone who makes me happy. I thought you’d be happy too, for me.”

Nike sighs and feels all the fight go out of her. She doesn’t have the energy to argue with Athena. She still isn’t really sure  _how_  to. “I am happy that you’re happy,” she says. “I just wish you’d thought to let me know, before you left.”

“I’ll text you, next time,” Athena promises, and then hangs up.

Nike hates that she’s so sure, that things will get easier after that. Athena will realize that Nike misses her, that Nike feels like she’s slowly being replaced, being forgotten. She’ll work at their friendship the way Nike’s worked at it all these years, constantly vigilant, always sure to make sure Athena knows she’s the most important to her. Nike hates that she’s  _so sure_ , that it goes both ways.

Athena does text, as promised, little one word messages, twice a day if Nike’s lucky.  _Morning_ , or  _haha_ , whenever Nike sends her a picture of Artemis dropping grapes on her sleeping brother’s face, or chubby little Eros with his mouth covered in chocolate, which he eats like it’s his job. 

They run together once that month, on a Sunday, while Medusa’s at work. They don’t get lunch after, or joke around in the locker room, or talk about whatever political article’s got Athena all worked up that day. They run, and when they’re finished, Athena drives off in her Cherokee, while Nike goes in to lift weights.

“It’s like--she’s put in her two weeks’ notice or something, and is leaving our friendship,” Nike says, handing Eros a new plastic block once he’s finished slobbering on the old one.

She’s at Aphrodite’s, and they’re in the garage because Hephaestus is working on some sort of commissioned job, and Aphrodite likes to sit in there with him, flipping through old issues of  _Vogue_  from the 1990′s, and passing him tools out of his box, so he doesn’t have to keep getting up and down on his bad leg.

“She’s just in the honeymoon phase,” Aphrodite shrugs, and passes the magazine over to show Nike a picture of Kate Moss in some sort of leotard made out of fur. Eros tries to eat it. “And even if she is ditching you--do you really still want her as a friend?”

Nike frowns. Eros has moved onto the end of her braid, now, but she doesn’t really mind; she can always take a shower. “I want to try and fix it,” she decides, because really, what other choice is there? Athena’s still her best friend, even if she’s being distant. She’s still the only friend Nike really has.

“Then fix it,” Aphrodite shrugs again, flashing a page with Naomi Campbell in denim sweats. The 90′s were primarily denim, it seems. “That’s your specialty, right?  _Doing_  things?”

“I guess,” Nike says, uncertain. Hephaestus calls out for some sort of wrench, and Aphrodite hops up to fetch it before returning to her seat on the hood of the engine-less Camaro. She’s wearing a pair of cut-offs and her toes are painted a shiny pink. Her hair’s all piled up on her head like she just didn’t feel like dealing with it, but she’s managed to make it look artful. Less than seven months since she had a baby, and Aphrodite is still the prettiest person Nike’s ever seen.

“So why are you still here?” She holds her arms out for her son, who goes squirming and cooing into her. She pulls a face at him, but Nike knows she’s still talking to her. “Go out and  _do_  something about it.”

Nike calls Athena that day, and leaves a message on her voicemail, but she’s still surprised when Athena calls her back just an hour later. She was expecting at least three days.

“Hey,” she says, a little breathless because  _it’s happening_. They’ll fix whatever’s broken, and she’ll have her best friend back. Everyone goes through stale patches, but she and Athena have known each other their whole lives; they can get past this.

“Hi,” Athena chirps, uncharacteristically bright. “So I have some  _amazing_  news.”

Nike hesitates a little; she’d sort of been hoping to launch right into the best friend speech she’d made up on the bike ride home. She wrote it down on a post-it, and she’s holding it in her hand. But, she also knows that until Athena says whatever it is she wants to, the conversation will go nowhere. “What is it?”

“I got into law school!”

“Oh,” Nike says, a little surprised in spite of herself. She’s known for a while now that Athena wanted to be a lawyer, and was applying to schools all over the state for the past year. “That’s great, Ath. Which one is it?”

“New York!”

Nike stays quiet long enough that Athena speaks again. “Nike?”

“You--I didn’t know you applied to anywhere in New York. Or the east coast, in general,” she admits.

“It was a last minute thing,” Athena says, like it’s  _nothing_. “New York was always my dream, but dad and everyone was so adamant about me staying close to home--but Medusa convinced me to just go for it.”

“Oh.” There’s really nothing else Nike can say, not without getting angry, not without Athena realizing that  _nothing_  about this is okay.

“I thought you’d be happy,” Athena says, clearly disappointed, and for the first time, Nike feels inexplicably  _mad_  at her. She’s furious.

“I’m happy that you’re happy,” she says, voice flat. “I’m  _always_  happy for you, and you know that. I just--I wish your happiness could include me.”

“You’re acting like we’ll never see each other again,” Athena says, like she always does; brushing Nike’s hurt off like it’s nothing, so she won’t have to feel like she’s done something wrong. She did it when they were kids too, but it was easier to forgive as kids, easier to think she didn’t really mean it. But she’s  _always_  done it, and Nike can’t bring herself to brush this one off. “There’s skype, you know. And cell phones. We’ll still talk.”

“Like we still talk now?” Athena goes quiet, and the minutes tick on. The post-it is still stuck to the tips of Nike’s fingers, but the speech itself is all but forgotten. There’s no point to it, now.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Athena asks, finally, sounding a little amused. Like it’s a joke to her. Like it’s not even possible for her to consider-- _Nike_  being the one to leave  _her_. Athena’s never been left behind, before. She always cuts away, first.

“Yeah,” Nike says. “I guess I am.” She hangs up before Athena can answer, and tosses the note in the trash.

“Tough break,” Artemis says, when Nike tells her about it the next day. She’s having lunch with her at her college, at one of the picnic tables out front. Nike always feels weird when she visits the campus; she’s the same age as a lot of the students, but she’s still distant. She never did well at school, outside of gym class, and she’d had no interest in another two-to-four years after the mandatory twelve, but. Sometimes she wonders what her life might be like, if she’d stuck to the usual track.

“I just don’t know what to do without her,” Nike says and then makes a face. It really does sound like a break up, and she supposes that’s what it is, but. Somehow it hurts, more. She’s dated a bit in her life, and she’s always gone into it anticipating the possibility of an ending. She’d never even considered it, with Athena. Best friends are supposed to be different. “She’s basically my only friend.”

Artemis looks unimpressed, and spears a forkful of salad. For a vegan, Artemis eats everything very violently. “That’s horse shit,” she says around a mouthful of arugula drenched in thousand island dressing. “What the fuck do you call me and Apollo?”

Nike glances over at Apollo, who’s currently working on some sort of graphic on his tablet. Or maybe he’s playing a video game, it’s hard to tell. Artemis stabs him in the arm with her fork, to get his attention.

“Ow, what the fuck,” he says, head snapping up. He glances between them. “Oh, yeah--sorry about the whole thing with Athena,” he offers, and it’s pretty pathetic, but mostly hilarious. Artemis rolls her eyes dramatically, and he puts his tablet away. “Okay, I don’t do well with this stuff,” he looks at Nike, suddenly serious. “You want a tattoo?”

Nike blinks at him. “A tattoo?”

“It’s his version of counseling,” Artemis says, dry, touching the arrow on her wrist instinctively. Nike’s always liked it; it fit her, fit both of them, really, and it was beautiful in its simplicity.

“Okay,” she decides. “Sure, why not?” Apollo looks delighted.

“Awesome. Anything you want in particular?”

Nike’s never really given much thought to tattoos, let alone one for herself, so it’s a little surprising that she knows the answer already. “A bird,” she pauses and then adds “A swallow, actually. On my wrist, like your arrows.”

“Cool,” he nods, whipping out a sketchbook and drawing a few different ideas.

He skips his afternoon classes to take her to the parlor where he works, so he can be the one to do it.

“He’s a control freak,” Artemis says, but she sounds fond about it. She tags along, because she only has a lecture on colonialism left, and she hates that professor, anyway.

It doesn’t hurt as much as Nike’s expecting--mostly it’s just a slight sting that she starts to get used to after the first sixty seconds. At the end of it all there’s a bird in black ink, small and pretty, on the smooth skin of her left wrist. Apollo wipes up the last of her blood and loose ink, and then wraps it in a bandage, tossing her a few bottles of special ointment to help it heal. 

That surprises her a little; she’d sort of expected him to just duct tape some toilet paper over her arm and then tell her not to get soap in it, or something. She knows for a fact that when his toothbrush broke, instead of getting a new one he just rinsed his mouth out with peppermint schnapps for like three months, until Artemis finally had enough and bought a new brush  _for_  him.

“So, what do you think?” he asks, and he still sounds a little smug like usual, but there’s an underlying nervousness there too, like he thinks she might not like it.

“Best counseling I’ve ever had,” she grins, and he sighs, relieved.

“Right?” He holds his hand out for a high five and she gives it to him, and then plays with the hem of the bandage the whole way home.

Nike starts to spend most of her time with the twins--she loves Aphrodite, and her family, she does, but she and Aphrodite have a pretty substantial age gap and are at different points in their lives, so there’s only so much they can talk about. 

Finally, Artemis has had enough.

“You mope over here so much that our couch has actually molded to the form of your body lying face down,” she grumbles. “What’s wrong? Have you gone running today?”

Nike grunts a little; the truth is, she’s grown  _bored_  with running and jump rope and aerial yoga and nearly every other facet of her life. One of the little succulents she collects and keeps in a row on her window sill actually died last week, and she didn’t even  _care_.

“Alright,” Artemis sighs, spinning in her computer chair to face her. “Go ahead--tell me your latest alien abduction theory.”

“I don’t have one,” Nike says, voice muffled by the pillow her face is pressed against. It’s from Apollo’s cross-stitch phase, and has a giant mint-green dick with dainty flowers all around it.

“You  _have_  to do something about this,” Artemis waves a hand at all of her. “Apparently the tattoo was not enough. Want to go shoot some guns? I’ll try and get us one of those illegal sawed-off’s, like in the old Westerns.”

“Maybe later.”

“Have you ever done horseback riding? I know a guy.”

“I went to cowgirl camp when I was twelve,” Nike says.

Artemis huffs a little, because there’s only  _so_ much patience that can fit in her tiny body. “Paragliding?”

“Junior year. Up in the mountains. Zeus took us.”

“Surfing?”

Nike stays silent, and Artemis instantly perks up.

“Wait, really? We live in California.”

“I don’t like the water.” Nike makes a face. One of her earliest memories was of the lakeside birthday party Athena had, where she ended up nearly drowning in the deepest waters, and would have, if Athena’s uncle hadn’t dragged her out.

“I thought you hated not knowing how to do stuff,” Artemis hedges, and Nike glares at her, but the effect is sort of dulled by the fact that she has her face stuck to a dick pillow.

“Come on, it’ll be great, I swear. Apollo knows a really good teacher.”

Nike hesitates. On the one hand, she really  _really_  hates the water. But on the other, she could be opening herself up to a whole onslaught of potential water sports, which sounds neat. She’s always wanted to try scuba diving.

“Okay,” she relents. “Take me to this teacher of yours.”

Artemis ends up dragging Apollo along with them, since he’s the one who knows the guy, and they pull up at one of the private beaches, where people have to pay to swim there. There’s a rental shop, for surfing and diving equipment, that they head straight towards.

“So how do you know this guy, exactly?” Nike asks, suspicious.  _Apollo knows so-and-so_  is usually code for he hooked up with them once in a coat closet, or something.

“He dated his mom,” Artemis says, cackling as Apollo scowls, and yeah, that’s infinitely worse.

“He and I are cool, though,” he says hastily. “I swear!” Nike doesn’t believe him for a second. 

There’s a kid behind the counter of the shop, barely fifteen years old, playing a Game Boy as he leans against the register. Apollo bounces up to him pleasantly, all bronze skin and tousled hair, looking like every Renaissance painting, ever. He’s  _oozing_  boyish charm, like a douchebag. If Nike didn’t already know he was great, she’d hate his guts on principle.

“Hey,” he grins at the boy. “We’re looking for Nerites.”

The boy hardly even looks up, and when he does he sort of squints at Apollo, like you would at the sun. “He’s in the water.”

“That’s fine,” Apollo shrugs. “Do you know whereabouts?”

The kid shrugs and points broadly towards the east, so they head out.

“How long are we going to wait?” Nike wonders, squinting out at the ocean. She sees a few blurs bobbing in the water, but it’s impossible to tell who or what they are.

“I think you mean how long are  _you_  going to wait,” Artemis corrects, hiding from the sun under her enormous blue umbrella. She’s the palest person Nike knows, and burns in half a second. “I’m waiting in the car, with the air conditioner.”

“It’s not even hot out,” Nike says, amused. It’s early April in San Francisco, which means they can get away with tank tops or sweaters, depending on the day. 

“There he is,” Apollo says, and starts waving a broad arm through the air. Nike turns to watch as a boy around their age, maybe a little older, slinks out of the water in a black wetsuit, carrying a slim shark-like surf board tucked under one arm. His hair is long and dark and plastered to his face, and he shakes it out as he walks towards them. He’s dark skinned with light eyes that laugh when Nike meets them. 

“Are you sure you’ve never slept with him?” she hisses, because it’s really not like Apollo to miss out on a hot guy. 

He just grins a little wickedly, leaving it up to her interpretation.

“Art boy,” the boy--Nerites--says, looking a little amused. “Never thought I’d see you again.”

“You offered me a free lesson,” Apollo says, and Nerites grins a little wider. He has very white, very straight teeth. Nike still isn’t sure he’s not a heat vision, or something. There’s just no way, with that bone structure.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d take me up on it.”

“I’m not,” Apollo chirps, slinging an arm around Nike’s shoulders. “This is my friend Nike. I’m passing my free lesson onto her.”

Nerites turns, like he hadn’t even noticed she was there. Now he eyes her up and down, slowly, taking everything in, and Nike tries not to fidget. She’s wearing her usual lazy clothes--a short jean skirt and a white top that says PIZZA + ME in big bubble letters. There’s a giant flannel shirt tied around her waist in case she got cold, and it makes her feel embarrassingly thirteen.

“Cool,” Nerites says with a shrug, and then asks “You ever surfed before?”

“She’s deathly afraid of the water,” Artemis snorts, grabbing Apollo’s arm, desperate to get back to the safety of her four walls and ceiling. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, buddy.” And then they’re gone. Nike watches them leave, looking ridiculous; Apollo in his khaki capris and plaid button-down, Artemis in her giant platform boots with all the buckles, wobbling across the sand. She turns back to Nerites, who’s still looking at her.

“Do I have to wear one of those?” she asks, pointing to his suit, and he grins.

“Don’t worry, I’ll try to find you a cute one.”

Nike frowns, feeling the usual rush of adrenaline that comes with competing. She may hate the water, but she  _loves_  to win. “Forget cute, find me one that’ll let me kick your ass.”

Nerites laughs, bright and surprised, all the way to the shop. When he looks at he looks at her, it’s with warm curiosity that makes her cheeks burn. “Alright, come on, I’ll see what I can do.”

She suits up in the changing room, and takes the rental board he has waiting for her outside, strapping the cuff to her ankle like he explains, and then practices standing up, while they’re still on the sand.

“It’ll be harder in the water,” he warns, and she rolls her eyes.

“You don’t say.”

Except, it’s  _harder_  in the water--the first few times, Nike doesn’t even manage to pull herself up on the board, before getting bowled over completely by the wave, while Nerites surfs infuriatingly well all around her. It’s like he’s a part of the water, as comfortable in it as he is in his own skin.

Nike still hates the water, instinctively, but it’s milder than it was when she was younger. It helps that they stick pretty close to the shore, and her muscle memory kicks in, so she remembers how to tread water, and float. Mostly, she just feels a little irritated that she somehow  _can’t get this_.

They work at it for  _hours_ , and she manages to stand up only once, but lasts for just six seconds before she falls again. The sun’s beginning to set by the time he calls it a day, since the beach is going to close and they have to turn in the equipment.

“That was a good start,” he says, even as she scowls. “Everybody falls on the first try; don’t beat yourself up about it.”

“I’m not everybody,” she says darkly, and she’s not being pretentious or egotistical--Aphrodite was right when she said Nike’s ability was  _doing things_. Nike has given dance recitals on less than an hour’s worth of practice. She’s run whole marathons in half as much time as the average grown man. She’s watched a life-long gymnast perform gold medal-worthy stunts, and then mimicked them perfectly ten minutes later. She does not  _do_  failure.

“Yeah, well, show up tomorrow, and maybe we’ll start seeing results,” Nerites shrugs. He walks her out, to where Apollo’s waiting in his ridiculous cherry red muscle car. He’s got his eyes closed and his headphones on, probably listening to Daft Punk again.

“Thanks,” she offers, waving. “Maybe I will.” There’s no maybe about it, though. She’s definitely coming back. She’s never lost before in her life, and she’s not about to start now.

Nike shows up for surf lessons everyday that month, fitting them in around her work schedule, which is relatively easy since she’s working nights. Nerites seems pleasantly surprised each time she arrives, like for some reason he didn’t think she’d be back, that time. She always is.

She doesn’t get better. She doesn’t get  _worse_ , but. It’s humiliating, and Nike isn’t really sure what to do about it. She’s never quit anything before, but the ocean is seriously testing her limits. Nerites seems to think she’s doing fine, that she’ll get the hang of it eventually, but. Nike isn’t so sure. It’s never taken her this long to master a skill, and she’s beginning to think it’s a sign that she never will.

“So how do you know Apollo?” he asks, eventually, just like she knew he would. But it doesn’t sound like he’s fishing to know if Apollo’s single, or interested. He’s just curious, like he always is, about everything. 

They’re eating lunch on the beach; turkey sandwiches that he brought from home, and Nike has a peanut butter-banana one in her bag that she was planning to have, but then he’d tossed a second sandwich in her lap, and she couldn’t say  _no_. 

“I was best friends with his sister,” she shrugs, and then realizes she should probably specify. “Not Artemis, another one. Athena. His half-sister.”

“Was?” he prompts, licking some mayonnaise off his thumb, and Nike’s mind goes blank for a moment.

“Was,” she confirms. Maybe she’ll tell him the rest, one day, but. Not yet. She’s not ready.

He nods, like he’d expected the answer, and goes back to his sandwich.

“How do  _you_  know Apollo?” she asks, mostly to see if he’ll tell her the truth about his mom, and partly to find out if they ever actually hooked up. Apollo’s steadfastly refusing to tell her, just grins smugly each time she asks, and Artemis claims to not know, so. 

Nerites grins a little smugly too, which she’s pretty sure is an answer, in itself. “He used to sleep with my mom, in exchange for expensive art supplies.”

“Oh my god,” Nike chokes, and Nerites thumps her hard on the back, still grinning, pleased that he got one over on her. “He  _would_  be an art supplies hooker,” she snorts. “How’d you find out?”

“I walked in on him in my mom’s shower,” he shrugs. “He, uh--asked me to model for him, and then paid me by sucking me off.”

“So you’re  _both_  art prostitutes,” she teases, and he laughs.

They get closer--she meets him around dawn for their daily lesson, and they have lunch on the beach before she leaves. He practically lives in the water apparently, only coming out to eat, and eventually to go home. They talk, more than just him telling her how to move her feet on the board, or set her center of balance. He tells her about his armada of sisters, about his mom who was less of a mom and more of a child, about the dad he never knew, who still sends him birthday cards in the mail, which he keeps in a drawer in his desk.

Nike tells him little bits and pieces. She’s not as open as Nerites, and he seems fine with it, happy to take whatever she’s willing to give, but she still feels guilty for making their friendship uneven.

She’s decided he’s a friend, by now. She’s still learning how to feel about it, having friends that aren’t Athena, friendships that aren’t so all-consuming, overshadowing all the other corners of her life. She’s trying to spread herself out a little more. It seems like a good idea, all things considered.

“You know,” he says, musing. It’s sunset, and they’re perched on their boards, drifting lazily in the water. Nike’s back on the morning shift, so Nerites has switched their lessons to the evenings, without her even having to ask. “You never told me why you decided to finally give surfing a shot.”

Nike shrugs a little, uncomfortable like she always is when she thinks about Athena. She’s not as broken as she was when it first happened, but she’s not completely whole, either. She never got the closure that she needed, and so the wound’s still a little raw, still there, still burning just below the surface. 

“Why does anyone?”

“New Year’s resolution, couple therapy, group pact, dare, bucket list,” Nerites ticks the reasons off on his fingers. “So what about you?”

“I,” Nike falters a little, not really sure how to explain it so he’ll understand. “I went through a bad break up.”

Nerites nods, sympathetic. “Those suck,” he says and then pauses. “Boyfriend?” He’s clearly trying to seem smooth about it, and Nike has to bite back a smile.

“Best friend,” she corrects. “Or--platonic life partner, really.”

“Those really suck.” He helps her unstrap the cuff when they step out of the water, hands warm and slick on the skin of her ankle, where her wetsuit’s ridden up. He tips his head back to look at her, still on his knees, and it’s suddenly very hard for her to swallow. “You want to talk about it?”

“There’s not much to talk about,” Nike shrugs. “I wasn’t as important to her as she was to me. We had a fight. We aren’t friends, anymore.”

Nerites stands, and in the last, dim shreds of sunlight, she can see his smile’s softened, as he looks at her. He’s tall, but so is Nike, so they’re nearly the same height. Usually she hates how tall she is, always taller than all the boys in her class and she’d get teased about it. They called her Titan in school.

But she likes that she and Nerites are at eye-level. She likes that all it would take for her to kiss him, would be to lean in. 

Nike keeps her cell phone in a ziploc bag in the inside pocket of her wetsuit, while she surfs, so she feels its vibrations immediately, a small buzzing up against her breastbone. She unzips the suit and slides it out, letting the rubber hang loose at her hips, shivering in just her bikini top. 

It’s a text, from Unknown Number, but Nike knows who it is right away.

_We need to talk. -A_

She stares at the words until they start to blur, and only looks up when she hears the hum of Nerites’ voice.

“What?” she asks, dazed, and sees that he’s frowning, all concern.

“Are you alright?” he asks. “You look kind of--messed up about something.”

Nike wets her lips, and sees him track the movement. It’s dark, and hard to tell, but she’s pretty sure he’s checking her breasts out too, which is a little surprising. Nike’s thin and toned, from years of tennis and soccer and softball and track. She’s never been curvy, and her bra size has never gone past the smallest possible B. 

But Nerites is all dark want, clear even in the dim lighting, as his gaze drifts down her body, between the valley of her breasts and to the muscles of her stomach, back up to the length of her neck, and finally her eyes.

“I am messed up,” she says, quiet. Just for them. “About a lot of things.”

Nerites doesn’t speak.

“Make me forget?” she asks, and that’s all it takes before he’s kissing her, lips cold and tasting like salt water, slipping easily over her own. His shoulders are slick when she reaches for them, and they both scramble to tear off their wetsuits, sticking tight to their skin and nearly impossible.

He fucks her in the sand, whispering her name against her neck, hair wet and sticking to her cheek, dripping into her mouth. The sand is hard against her skin, leaving little indents where the grains dig into her ass, but she likes that too. It gives her something to focus on--the feel of the sand, the feel of his hands on her, his mouth,  _him_.

But eventually it’s over, and her mind goes back to that text. To Athena’s voice on the phone, the last time they spoke. 

Nerites is on his back beside her, and he curls an arm over to stroke her stomach, tracing the divots as he goes. “Did it help?” he asks, uncharacteristically shy, and Nike knows that for him, this wasn’t just a hook up. This wasn’t modeling for a portrait in exchange for some sex.

“I don’t know,” she says, honest, and he nods before leaning over to kiss her, soft and sweet.

She hates that that’s not what she wants, right now. 

“You’re not ready,” he sighs, nosing at her cheek before pulling back. “I can wait.”

“You don’t have to,” she says, and he presses his thumb against her lip, chastising. His smile is as soft as his eyes.

“I want to.” He glances up as a car drives by, the passing headlights washing everything in dull yellow. “We should probably get dressed, though. This beach is still private.”

They change into their street clothes, and Nerites has a key to the shop, so he drops their suits and boards off, before walking her to wear her bike is chained up, on the boardwalk.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” He looks hopeful and nervous, like he’s worried he’s just scared her off. Nike smiles, leans in to press a kiss to his cheek.

“See you tomorrow.”

It’s dawn when Nike goes to the swing set. It’s huge, made of heavy metal stretching up towards the sky, so ancient that everything groans when she sits in the seat. Everything else in the little park has rusted over and sunken into the ground over the years of disuse, but not the swing set. The swing set survived.

It was always Nike’s favorite, even when she was too small to really kick her legs with enough momentum to get anywhere. She would spin and spin, twisting the chain around itself until it grew taught, and then she’d release it, whirling so fast the world blurred into streaks of color, her hair whipping her face in the wind. 

As she got older, and learned to swing properly, she made a game out of seeing how high she could go, and leap from the very top, to see how far she could land across the grass. Athena tried to copy her once and botched the landing, twisting her ankle on impact, but Nike never did. She never got the little rush of fear that most kids did, when they finally jumped. To Nike, it always felt like flying.

This is where Athena finds her, as the sun begins to rise. She sits on the swing beside her, facing the opposite way, towards the east, while Nike looks towards the ocean. There’s a new housing development being built, so she can’t actually see the water, but it’s enough to know that it’s there.

“I’m leaving in two days,” Athena says, breaking the silence. It doesn’t hurt as much as Nike thought it would. Mostly, she just feels resigned, and very tired. For the first time in a long time, she feels tired. She hasn’t actually slept in three days.

“Good luck,” Nike says, and means it, but when she looks over, Athena is frowning. She’d probably expected to find Nike in some wallowing mess, desperate to have her best friend back. But instead she gets this Nike, calm and collected, and a little tanner than the last time they spoke. A little more independent.

“I didn’t mean to push you away,” Athena says, and it’s probably as close to a real apology as Nike’s ever going to get. It’s not even a bad one.

“But you did,” Nike shrugs. “We probably could have fixed it, if one of us had fought for it, but. I was tired of always doing the fighting, and you didn’t try.”

Athena’s lips thin into a line, like she’s holding her words back, which is just as well. Athena’s mean when she gets defensive, and Nike has the feeling this is going to be their last conversation. She doesn’t want it to be a bad one.

“I hope you like New York,” she offers.

“I just want to be happy,” Athena says, like she’s trying to explain. But Nike doesn’t need an explanation, and she doesn’t want one. It’s enough for her to know Athena doesn’t want to stay. She’s not about to try to force her.

“I want you to be happy,” Nike says. “But I want to be happy, too.”

Athena nods, a little jagged, and then stands up to leave. Her car’s parked at the curb, and Nike swings back and forth lazily, watching it start up and pull away and leave. She kicks her legs in and out, up and down, higher and higher until she thinks the poles might give or the chains might snap or the earth might cave in around her. And then she closes her eyes and jumps.

It still feels like flying.


End file.
